Under Her Skin
by LisaRom122
Summary: Post-Ep for Small Sacrifices. House wants to know about Cuddy's six-day marriage.


_This is a post-ep piece to Small Sacrifices (7x08). Cuddy looked SO shocked and sad when House confronted her with her six-day marriage, that I'm assuming it must have been something bad. And House being House, of course he wants to know what happened._

_This fic has some sex and violence in it (both not extremely intense, though), so if you're super sensitive or too young, this is not for you._

**Under Her Skin**

They are lying in his bed in post-coital glow—both naked—him on his back and her nestled against his side, her head resting on his chest. She drove to his place after work, after his apology, which she assumes to have been a lie, but she has decided to let it go. She appreciates him having dropped his principles for her, and his effort to breach the gap between them. And to be fair, she knows deep down that she is asking too much of him. He has always lied to her occasionally, and she told him she did not want him to change. She just feels so raw and on edge since they have been dating, afraid to lose control over things she used to define herself by. Her emotions are all over the place, and she attempts to keep herself in check by keeping him in check. Things are easier to cope with when she has the upper hand.

She sighs, her breath stirring the hairs on his chest. He takes her hand, which is resting over his heart, and gently strokes her fingers. She has noticed that he likes playing with them. His other hand is tucked under the covers, lying on the small of her back, his warm thumb softly caressing her skin.

Their lovemaking has been heated and fierce. They barely managed to reach his bed before he pushed inside her, half of her clothes still on. Warding him off for the last couple of weeks has been difficult for her. She needed him near, needed his touch. And she hated every aspect of _need_, despised it more than anything. She has always valued her independence, cradled it like an infant, and fears that her boundless desire for him might some day cost her her sanity. Being with him feels intense, risky, at times almost threatening.

"So... who was he?" he interrupts her reflective state of mind.

The question comes out of the blue and it takes her a moment to arrange her thoughts. She mentally flips through their previous five to six conversations for clues until the most lacerating one jumps at her and claws its way into her chest. Of course he would query her about it. His obsession to know everything about her demands it.

He has waited for the perfect moment to ask her. She has used the same tactic on him occasionally: They are both more open and willing to disclose their truest truths after they have been intimate with each other, sometimes even during the act. This time, when he was inside her, he told her how much he had missed her; how miserable he had been without her.

"Before I went to Michigan, I actually studied a couple of semesters here in Princeton," she starts. She feels warm and secure, and sees no point in not telling him. "That's where we met. He was in law school, five years older than me, ambitious, charming, exciting… And I fell for him. Hard. He knew how to impress me. We had a great time together, lots of parties, lots of fun… He asked me to marry him after three months we'd been dating. Told me that he knew I was the one and all that B.S. it takes to convince a naïve and romantically blinded nineteen-year-old."

She takes a small break and slightly shakes her head against his chest, dismayed at her own idiocy. "I ignored all the alarm signals, didn't tell my parents even because I knew they'd be against it. Only my sister came as my witness, and my best friend from high school, who both swore to secrecy. They didn't approve, but held their tongues."

House remains quiet, but she is certain of having his undivided attention. He stopped playing with her fingers and has gone over to absentmindedly stroking her forearm.

"Three days after the wedding, he comes home very late and very drunk. He had been out celebrating with his friends, which I knew nothing about. I'd been worried and I told him as much when he arrived. This was pre cell phone times, obviously. He didn't realize how upset I was or just didn't care. He was horny and wanted to have sex, and wouldn't take 'No' for an answer."

House's hand stops moving and she feels the muscles in his chest contracting, his head lifting up in an effort to look at her.

She stays put, however, unable to face him. "He pulled out the primitive, Neanderthal argument that me being his wife gave him rights to my body, and that I better fulfill my duties. I thought he was kidding until he pushed me against the wall of the dining room and snatched my wrists. He grabbed them with one hand and held them above my head, trying to pull my pants down with the other. I struggled to get out of his grip and tried to knee him, but failed, so I spit at him. He was so shocked he let go, but only to brace himself and hit me. With his fist. Right in the jaw. Before I knew what was happening he'd spun us both around and hurled me against the table—I remember how sharp the edge felt cutting into my lower back—then he rolled me over and pressed my upper body down on the table top. This time he managed to pull down my pants, and while he was struggling with his own I watched my blood dripping on the table—his punch had split open my lip—and I left my body for a moment, observing the scene from above. I couldn't grasp the absurdity of it all, that I was about to get raped by my own husband, when I saw a half empty bottle of wine out of the corner of my eye. We'd shared it at dinner the previous night."

She shakes her head again at the irony. "I lunged for it, pushed away from the table, and flung it backwards to where I assumed his head would be. I hit him so hard he actually went down. The red wine was all over the floor, mixed with some blood, and for a moment I was afraid I had killed him. When he opened his eyes, I ran. Didn't even put on any shoes. Just grabbed my keys and bolted."

She makes a pause and breathes for a while. He still does not comment, so she finishes her story: "I went to a friend who studied law and asked her to help me get out of the marriage. She took pictures of my injuries, to document them, and stored them as potential evidence. She put up a contract, and three days after it happened I had enough courage to approach him in front of his apartment while my friend waited in the car. I showed him the pictures and told him that I'd press charges if he didn't sign the papers. He needed a clean slate for his career, so he did."

There is nothing else for her to say, so she lies in silence, waiting for his reaction. She starts feeling awkward when she receives none. She has expected neither comfort nor empathy from him, has expected nothing in particular at all, really. She is not even feeling emotional or upset having retold the story. What happened was in the past. She is over it. Had actually worked through it with a therapist several years after the incident.

But her disclosure to him requires some form of acknowledgement. She needs him to say something, _anything_. The incident was one of the most profound and terrifying experiences of her life, and had edged its way into her personality, had shaped who she had become, no matter how hard she had fought its effect on her. Her need for control, her bad taste in men, her talent to screw up her relationships… to either push her partner away or to make life with her so unbearable the only remaining choice she left the other person with was to leave.

She has opened up to him in a way she hasn't had the courage to before. She has shown him her scars and all the damage, and she feels vulnerable. His silence almost hits her like an insult, like a betrayal, creating a giant emotional chasm between them.

She cannot bear to be physically close to him any longer and moves her hand, about to push herself off his chest, when he holds onto her lower arm to stop her. He pulls his second hand from her lower back and to clutch at her fingers. With both hands, he lifts her arm gently and guides it closer to his face until she feels his lips kissing the inside of her wrist.

She has no idea what he is trying to convey to her. Was he up to another round of sex? Did he really believe she was in the mood for it after what she just told him? After his muteness? She is about to confront him when she realizes that his touch is not sexual. He even makes the effort to turn her arm in order to kiss the side where the back of her hand meets her lower arm. Her wrists are not on the list of her erogenous zones, and he knows that.

After gently releasing her arm, he pushes on her shoulder and slides out from underneath her. She has no idea what is going on and remains lying on her stomach. He sits next to her and pushes the blanket off her shoulders and down to her hips, but without exposing his favorite part of her. He tenderly strokes the bare skin on the small of her back before he bends down to plant kisses there as well. He starts at her side somewhere between her waist and her hip, and his lips caress her skin in an almost straight line at a perpendicular angle to her spine.

When he is halfway across, reaching a vertebra, she realizes what he is doing: He is kissing the places she got hurt: Her wrists getting gripped, her lower back hitting the table… He is making up for the violence her body experienced, replacing it with his love. And as much as she thought she was over this, his tenderness releases something inside her. As if the pain had been stored away in her cells all these years and is now freed into her bloodstream, hot and piercing, soaring through her chest and rising up to her throat. Before she knows it the first tears start to quietly fall from her eyes.

She feels him completing his line before the blanket is being pulled back up and he comes into her line of vision again, laying down on his side, facing her. His eyes wander over her face, his expression open and caring. His fingers slide along her jaw in a continuation of making amends. "I'm assuming he was right handed," he whispers, cradling the left side of her chin, his thumb brushing over her cheek.

She nods briefly. Her tears keep running over the bridge of her nose and dripping onto the pillow.

His face draws closer and she shuts her eyes before his lips meet her jawline and he kisses his way downward towards her chin and then upward, drawing a semicircle across her cheek over to the corner of her mouth, and finally to her lower lip, gently brushing his lips over the spot where it had split open.

She takes in a shaky breath, and he pulls back, resting his head on the pillow only a few inches away from her. Somehow she cannot stop crying. "I have no idea what this is about. I was sure I'd put it behind me." She turns onto her side as well, scooting closer to him, and wipes at her tears.

"It's okay." He drapes his arm around her to hold her close. "I love you."

He does not tell her this often, but when he does it is all the more meaningful. She smiles, her heart warming at his words, and her tears finally cease. She moves in to kiss him softly. "I'm glad," she whispers against his mouth.

He looks at her with a sincere expression on his face. "Now, I don't believe I actually need to say this, but I know fears can be irrational. Plus, I tried coming up with a situation where you said 'No' and couldn't think of one, so: You can tell me when you don't wanna have sex with me. I'm never going to force you."

"I know," she breathes, cradling his head. She almost tears up again and gives him a melancholy smile. "I know. But thank you for saying that." His reaction could not have been more perfect. She feels safe and loved and protected.

She kisses him again, this time with more emphasis. He correctly interprets her cue and pulls her tighter against him, his hand traveling from her back down to her butt. They make love again, but this time in the true sense of the word, being as gentle and probing and careful as when they first shared their bodies in this bed together. She feels as if she is falling in love all over again, but deeper, with a tighter bond between them.


End file.
